Teagasc Pig Farmers’ Conference

The Teagasc National Pig Conference will take place at the Horse & Jockey Hotel, Thurles on Tuesday 21st October and at the Cavan Crystal Hotel, Cavan on Wednesday 22nd October.

Guest speaker, Jan Dahl, a vet from the Danish Agricultural and Food Council, will give an update on Salmonella control in Denmark. The second guest speaker, John Moriarty, a Senior Research Officer with the Central Veterinary Research Laboratory, Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Backweston, will discuss delivery of a Veterinary Laboratory Surveillance Strategy for the Irish Pig Sector.

Research at Teagasc Moorepark will be to the fore at the conference with short summary presentations from research staff on current and future projects. The Net Energy system offers us an opportunity to reduce our feed costs. Edgar Garcia Manzanilla will present a paper showing how this can be achieved. We are seeing an increase in litter size. Managing these large litters in the farrowing room is important and is the focus of a major project at the pig research centre in Moorepark. Managing these pigs when they are weaned is the focus of another paper. The option of running the business as a company versus sole trader will be discussed by Teagasc Financial Management specialists, James McDonnell and Kevin Connolly. Other papers will focus on rodent control and benchmarking herd performance.

A new feature this year is a poster presentation where the PhD and Masters students will present an overview of what is currently happening on some of the many research projects at Teagasc Moorepark.

Head of the Teagasc Pig Development Department, Ciarán Carroll, said: ”We encourage all those involved in the sector to attend the conference and not to miss the opportunity to meet fellow producers and get the latest information that the Teagasc Pig Development Department have put together for this year’s event.”

Pre-registration for the conference is now open and may be made by contacting Róisín Condon (025-42330 or roisin.condon@teagasc.ie) at Teagasc Moorepark, or any member of the Pig Development Department.

Registration on the day starts at 1.30pm. The conference is free to pig producers (with client card) under the Teagasc/IFA Joint Programme and is €50 for non-producer attendees.